“Then why in the world are you in the stop?” he snapped, thumped his hand on the side of the bus, and the vehicle tore away at top speed....
STORY
As I went to sleep that night, Champa the nurse slithered her way into my head, looking at me with two big, shining, brown eyes, rephrasing the words ‘Won’t you apologize?’ in many new ways, whispering in many new voices.
I slept restlessly, waking every time she materialized in my dreams. I was a rabbit running from a vixen. A rabbit that had walked the vixen into his warren himself, and was now half-heartedly running from it only to silence the instinct within him that directed him to flee against his wishes.
The next morning, after breakfasting at a restaurant nearby, I took off at a fast pace down the street. Not knowing where I was headed, I roamed around, lost in thought, until I spotted a bus station and sat down on the bench, tired. There was a swish and she was there, sitting down beside me, wearing her grey uniform. I had walked into the station near the Christian colony, I deduced as I almost stood up, startled, and then sank resolutely down beside her, determined not to let her know how she had affected me yesternight in the dark street, and that I had dreamt of her incessantly since then.
“Good morning, sir,” she said, and now the feminine quality was gone from her voice, replaced by the robotic nursemaid. “I hope you are well.”
“Morning,” I answered, feeling an over-powering wave of regret. Did I seem too cold last night when I did not answer her? Would I never hear her talk like that to me again? “I am quite fine. You?”
“I am well, sir.” She said, looking straight ahead.
“Champa,” I leaned towards her very slightly. “I did not answer you yesterday.”
She glanced at me, her face expressionless and her eyes speaking volumes.
“I should have apologized.” I took a deep breath, trying to clamp down with a lid the emotions that had been conducting a mad choir inside my brain all night. “In fact, I–” I looked into her eyes, my hand snaking into her lap and clutching hers. “I think, Champa, that I…”
The bus’s horn blared and the door crashed open.
“Would you like to climb in?” the conductor asked.
Champa stood up briskly, pulling her hand away.
“Meet me tonight at the park, if you like, sir.” She said with an indifferent gesture of her hand that made me think of the Anarkali I had seen last month in a local theatre, dancing for a very untalented Saleem. Then she got up and boarded the bus. The conductor gave me an impatient look: “Well, do you want to come?”
I shook my head.
“Then why in the world are you in the stop?” he snapped, thumped his hand on the side of the bus, and the vehicle tore away at top speed.
The entire day, I spent swinging like a pendulum between deciding what to wear and what to say tonight, to lamenting myself for contemplating meeting a poor, illiterate Christian girl in the night, alone, even if for a stand (which I doubted it would be). My taste had never sunk that low.
I periodically reminded myself that I had nothing in the way of a future with Champa, that there was nothing beautiful about her, only some things interesting, and that if my father or any of his (many) employees or friends saw us together, I would lose my father’s pecuniary aid in a blink.
With these wild thoughts on an unstoppable rampage across the expanse of my mind it was impossible to work, so I left the office for a quick stroll in the park.
I was walking down my usual path when I saw Mr. and Mrs. Di Silva heading my way, Mrs. Di Silva waving at me excitedly.
I went to them quickly, trying not to let my face give any small indication of what had happened in front of their house the night before or what I was currently thinking about regarding their nursemaid.
“Where’s that nurse, madame? Champa, isn’t it?” I asked, feigning ignorance on purpose, and then deriding myself for feigning it as if I had something to hide from the stupid Di Silvas. “She should be walking Mr. Di Silva, not you.” Perhaps she is nearby. I will wear tonight the colour she is wearing today, I promised myself, not entirely unmindful neither accepting of the fact that I was acting like a teenager with a massive crush.
Mrs. Di Silva, overcome with breathlessness, clasped her hands to her waist, panting. Mr. Di Silva looked on indifferently down the path, as if impatient for her to tell me whatever it was she wanted to tell, so that they could continue walking.
“Champa, m’dear?” She puffed. “Poor creature. She slipped on the stairs near the laundry room last night, and broke her leg.”
“Slipped?” I echoed stupidly.
Mrs. Di Silva nodded sorrowfully. “We found the poor thing lying near the bottom, Mr. D.’s shirt in her hands.”
“After she washed it, of course?” I suggested, the fist inside my pocket clenched tightly.
“No, bless you!” Mrs. D. let out a tinkling laugh. “She never got to the laundry room in the first place!”
She grasped the wheel-chair and pushed it down the path, calling over her shoulder. “We discussed it, Mr. D. and I. It’s better to let her go now. A broken leg. Tut. I am getting a new nurse next month. Do come to tea next Tuesday, won’t you?”
I stood with my hands in my pockets, my mind silent for the first time in the past few hours. After the Di Silvas had disappeared down the path, I took my hands out of my pocket, the little journal clutched in one, a pen I usually kept on me in the other, and sat down onto a bench – perhaps I would doodle for a while before returning to my office?
I dragged the pen across the paper, it left nothing in its wake except for a long, almost invisible mark where the nib – completely out of ink – had pushed down onto the blank white page.
I didn’t stop, though. The dried ink did not stop me. I kept dragging the pen across the paper until the dry nib tore through the page I had opened and then turning the page, I started running the empty pen mindlessly onto the next page.
The end
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